How I Decide Which Events Actually Matter
A look inside my process for navigating conferences, summits, and what comes after
I get asked this question constantly: “Which events should I be attending in 2026?”
The honest answer? It depends entirely on what you’re trying to learn, who you need to meet, and what signals you’re watching for. But the framework I use to decide—that’s universal.
After a decade at Facebook managing global elections and five years running Anchor Change, I’ve been to hundreds of conferences, summits, and closed-door briefings. I’ve sat through panels that completely shifted my thinking and keynotes I’ll never get those 45 minutes back from. I’ve made connections that turned into clients and sat at networking receptions wondering why I’m not already at the airport.
Here’s what I’ve learned about making events work for you, not against you.
Before: Deciding What Deserves Your Attention
The calendar is relentless. Every week brings invitations to AI safety convenings, trust and safety roundtables, democracy summits, platform policy briefings. You could spend your entire year flying between ballrooms and still miss something critical.
My filter comes down to three questions:
Who’s in the room? Not who’s speaking—who’s attending. The real value is often in the hallway conversations, the dinner after, the group chat that forms. I’m looking for rooms where platform teams, policymakers, civil society, and academics are actually talking to each other, not past each other.
What signal am I tracking? Some events are about staying current. Others are about spotting what’s coming six months out. For example, I prioritize watching events like Davos this week and the Munich Security Conference in February because they set the geopolitical tone for the year. Conferences like TrustCon are where I can hear firsthand about the cutting-edge safety issues tech is working on.
Can I learn this another way? If the content will be livestreamed, the report will be published, or the insights will filter through my network anyway, I’m probably skipping it. I go when I need to be in the room, when the value is in the exchange, not the broadcast.
This year, that’s why I’m prioritizing TrustCon over South By Southwest. (SXSW) One gives me access to the people shaping platform responses. The other gives me a talk to watch on YouTube and the report to read later.
During: What I Actually Do There
Here’s the thing seasoned veterans know: the official agenda is rarely where the value is.
I treat the scheduled programming as context—it tells me what questions are front of mind, which topics are getting investment, where the energy is. But the real work happens in three places:
Targeted conversations. I usually go in with 5-7 specific people I want to talk to. Not networking for the sake of it—strategic conversations with people who can help me understand a pattern I’m tracking or introduce me to someone doing critical work I don’t have visibility into.
Listening for gaps. What’s not being talked about? What assumptions are people making that might not hold? Where are the blind spots? Those gaps often become the most valuable insights I bring back to clients.
Real-time synthesis. I’m constantly asking: how does this connect to what I heard last week, what I’m seeing from platforms, what my clients are wrestling with? Events aren’t isolated—they’re data points in a larger pattern. I will often now record public panels on Otter.ai so I have a real time transcript to reference back to when I get home.
I say no to a lot. I skip panels where I already know what everyone’s going to say. I leave early when I’ve gotten what I came for. Protecting your energy is part of the strategy.
After: Turning Attendance Into Intelligence
This is where most people drop the ball. You come home exhausted, dump your notes into a folder, and move on to the next thing.
I have a 48-hour rule: within two days of getting home, I synthesize what I learned into something actionable. Usually that means:
Updating my strategic intelligence. Which trends got validated? Which assumptions got challenged? What new questions emerged?
Following up on specific conversations. The people I met who can help me understand something better, introduce me to their network, or collaborate on a project.
Sharing selectively. Some insights go into client briefings. Others become newsletter analysis. A few stay in my back pocket until I see how they develop.
The events that actually matter aren’t the ones with the best production value or the biggest names. They’re the ones that change how you see a problem, connect you with people doing important work, or give you visibility into what’s coming next.
What I’m Watching in 2026
Later this week, I’m sending paid subscribers a full briefing of the calendar of events I’m tracking in 2026—everything from elections to public summits, academic convenings to industry conferences. It’s organized by quarter with links to more information.
If you’re trying to navigate 2026 with intention, spending your time and attention on what will actually move your work forward, this is the roadmap.
Upgrade to a paid subscription to get the full 2026 events calendar plus regular strategic briefings on what I’m learning in these rooms.